This content was published on January 13, 2016 11:00 AMJan 13, 2016 - 11:00

Einstein was both a student and professor in Zurich

(Keystone)

When Albert Einstein lived in Zurich, he used to prepare the groundwork for his revolutionary theories while sitting in a café. Many other Nobel Prize winners chose to spend time in the city for work, as an exhibition shows. A past laureate takes a guess at why.

Einstein, who gained the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921external link, first came to Zurich as a student. After a stint at the Bernexternal link Patent Office from 1902-1909, during which he developed the Special Theory of Relativity, he returned to Zurich as a professor of theoretical physics. He left the city in 1914.

“He didn’t get an assistant professorship in Zurich, but he had some friends here, such as Marcel Grossmann, who later became a professor at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich and who got him the job in Bern. Grossmann also helped him later in Zurich with the General Theory of Relativity.”

Relativity and coffee

Grossmann and Einstein used to sit in the Café Metropolexternal link - which still exists - to talk about this theory, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2015. Grossmann helped with the calculations; he was better at maths, said Wyder.

In Einstein’s time, the café, which is not far from the banks of the river Limmat, was a Belle Époque establishment, styled along the lines of a Viennese Coffee House.

Today, it is a smaller, much sleeker affair, with only the outside archways and some photos on the wall attesting to its more ornate past. On a quiet winter’s morning, it was populated by older couples and ladies taking a break from shopping, as well as the odd businessman. A panel near the bar was showing what was on offer at the Metropol restaurant next door (sushi and sashami).

Photos of favourite city locations of 12 of the Zurich-associated Nobel laureates can be viewed at the exhibition, in addition to information about their life and work. The idea, Wyder explained, was to show what they did in their free time.

Wolfgang Pauliexternal link, Nobel for Physics, 1945, and professor at the ETH Zurich, for example, had a long-time association with psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Gustav Jung.

Pauli first consulted Jung after a breakdown following the end of his first marriage. This is why the castle-like building housing theexternal linkPsychology Club Zurichexternal link, founded by Jung as a forum for his ideas, has been chosen as his Zurich place.

Nobel criteria

So why has Zurich been associated with so many Nobel laureates? It must be noted that the exhibition criteria are rather wide: it was only necessary to have been in Zurich for a few weeks to be counted.

Wyder says Zurich’s proximity to Germany, until World War Two the largest scientific nation, is one factor in its Nobel success. German students used to come to Zurich for a few semesters as a matter of course.

Another reason was the city’s stability in the inter- and post-war years, which held an attraction.

“The third reason is we have two excellent universities: the ETH Zurich is famous worldwide and this meant competition, so more opportunities for researchers in Zurich to study and learn,” Wyder said.

Passions for research and sport

He has worked in Zurich for 46 years and, at age 77, has a contract as a full professor at the ETH Zurich until the end of 2018. “So I’ll make almost 50 years of it and it has been a great place to realise my dreams,” the professor told swissinfo.ch.

He reckons, however, that there are probably only around 15 Nobel Laureates who have worked in Zurich most of their lives. Among those alive, there are six, he says.

Through his work at the beginning of the 1980s, Wüthrich was able to develop a tool which allows scientists to see three-dimensional images of marcomolecules, for example proteins, and to understand their function in a cell. This, the Sweden-based Nobel Committee said, has helped revolutionise the development of new pharmaceuticals.

Zurich’s modern Letzigrund Stadiumexternal link has been chosen as Wüthrich’s favourite place in Zurich in the exhibition. The professor, a certified sports instructor - “my best university diploma” - played football for more than 30 seasons, in his older days in the senior league with the FC Wallisellen, including matches at the Letzigrund.

Scoring a goal makes you an immediate hero, but in science you have to wait: you have your own doubts, criticism comes from outside, and others need to repeat your experiments to confirm the results, as the professor explains in this official Nobel Prize video.

nobel embed

The following content is sourced from external partners. We cannot guarantee that it is suitable for the visually or hearing impaired.

“The Swedes may take years and years to make sure you were first,” the professor added to swissinfo.ch. “And this may take forever. That’s why it sometimes takes so long for the prize to come after the discovery.”

The exhibition

Einstein & Co – Zurich and the Nobel Prize run at Zurich city hall until January 23, 2016. It includes 63 Nobel winners who have links to Zurich, having stayed there for a few weeks or for many decades. Twelve make it into the “Hall of Fame”, a mix of current and past winners. There are three women among the 63: Bertha von Suttner, (Peace, 1905), Nelly Sachs (Literature, 1966) and Herta Müller (Literature, 2009).

In a 15-minute film entitled “Zurich, a hotspot of geniuses”, young people studying the same disciplines as the Nobel Prize winners explain how they have been inspired by them.

end of infobox

swissinfo.ch

Neuer Inhalt

Horizontal Line

subscription form

Form for signing up for free newsletter.

Sign up for our free newsletters and get the top stories delivered to your inbox.

WEF 2018

Comment on this article:

Copyright

All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.

As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.